


Pines and Pointed Hat

by SolarMorrigan



Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gen, M/M, Older Greg though I guess it's not as relevant, Older Pines Twins, older wirt, scraps really, there's swearing that's basically what the T rating is for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 11:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17848655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: A collection of scribbles and bits about Dipper and Wirt, written in 2016. None of them lead anywhere and I'm fond of some of them, so I thought I'd post them all together. Fuller descriptions posted for each chapter





	1. Poetry

**Author's Note:**

> Most, if not all, of these pieces don't really stand on their own. They won't be confusing, really, but none of them make a full story. If necessary, I'll put up content warnings or some background description for the piece. Largely, though, these are just here to be collected; besides that, I figure someone might at least be amused by some of it?
> 
> Edited for some grammatical errors (though I'm sure I missed some), but mostly left as they were

“I don’t even _like_ poetry!” Dipper huffed, flopping back on his bed.

“But you like Wiiirt!” Mabel sounded entirely too gleeful about the situation.

Dipper groaned, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

The mattress dipped and bounced a bit as Mabel sat down at the end of Dipper’s bed. “Being in love changes you, Dipper,” Mabel said sagely, patting Dipper on the knee.

“Okay, one, do _not_ use your ‘expert matchmaker’ bullshit voice on me, that only ever leads to bad things and embarrassing conversations.” Dipper pulled his hands away from his face to glare over at Mabel. “Two, I’m not _in love_. I’m… in _like_. Or something.”

Mabel snorted. “Dipper, you sound like a ten-year-old.”

“Pretty sure ten-year-olds don’t say things like ‘bullshit’.”

“I dunno, cable TV is getting pretty loose these days. And you’re ‘in like’? Really? Are you in _like_ like?”

Dipper sighed. “Okay, fair point. I just… don’t want to rush into things. I always do that and I always ruin it.”

“Maybe that’s just because you haven’t found the right person to rush into things with yet,” Mabel offered.

“And evidence that Wirt is the one to rush into things with is unsurprisingly lacking,” Dipper replied dully.

“Dipper. He wrote you a poem. A _poem_ ,” Mabel insisted. “And then you went to the library and checked out, like, a fuckzillion poetry books so you would know how to respond!”

Dipper studiously avoided looking over at his backpack, which was currently carrying at least five volumes of contemporary and classical romantic poetry anthologies. “I like being prepared,” he sniffed.

“You didn’t spend this much time on poetry when you were covering it in English and you always go way overboard on homework!” Mabel huffed. “Admit it, Dipdop, you’ve got it bad.”

Dipper frowned. “If I don’t say it out loud, does that make it less true?”

“Nope,” Mabel chirped immediately.

“Yeah,” Dipper sighed. “That’s what I thought.”


	2. Nap Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper's sleep habits never really improved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an outtake from a bigger story I was planning. I imagined Dipper and Wirt to be vaguely college-aged and in a relatively new romantic relationship. There's... probably not much more to it than that

“Okay, bedtime for the severely sleep-deprived,” Wirt huffed, finally having managed to drag Dipper up the stairs and into his room.

“Mm?” Dipper hummed sleepily, turning to look at Wirt.

“Yeah, you’ve been, like, zero help on this. You owe me when you wake up,” Wirt carried on his mostly one-sided conversation as he attempted to maneuver Dipper onto the bed.

Dipper remained ridiculously unhelpful in the process. “Okay, you’re shorter than me, you should not be this heavy. Can’t you just…” Wirt attempted to unlatch Dipper’s fingers from his shirt. “You wanna maybe let go, please?”

“Mmnooo,” Dipper mumbled, his head flopping to the side to rest against Wirt’s arm.

“That is the exact opposite of cooperating, Dipper,” Wirt informed him. “How are you supposed to go to bed if you won’t let go of me?”

Dipper blinked and looked blearily from Wirt to the bed, then shrugged. Making the first real move of his own volition since Wirt had taken custody of him, Dipper leaned forward and flopped down onto the bed. This would have been considerably more helpful to Wirt if Dipper had deigned to unwrap himself from the taller boy first. As it was, Wirt found himself being pulled down onto Dipper’s bed alongside his boyfriend, still trapped by a deceptively strong arm.

“Dipper, what are you- Dipper, no.” Wirt wriggled in Dipper’s grip too late, as Dipper rolled over and pulled Wirt closer to himself.

Wirt knew Dipper got… odd when he hadn’t slept. He tended to chew on the collar of his shirt, he held entire conversations that he had no recollection of, he mumbled to himself in dead languages, and on one memorable occasion he wrote half an essay backwards before faceplanting into the keyboard. Clinging and cuddling were honestly mundane in comparison to some of the things Dipper had done after spending a few consecutive nights without sleep. That didn’t mean Wirt was willing to put up with it, however.

Even as Dipper cuddled closer to him, cinching his arm around Wirt’s waist and pillowing his head on Wirt’s shoulder, Wirt attempted to pull away from Dipper’s hold. “No, you’re the one who needs to sleep, not me. I am not taking a nap with you.” Wirt said sternly, pushing at Dipper’s arm.

The hold remained firm, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Wirt wondered how it was possible for Dipper to stay so tense even running on less than five hours sleep in half a week. Wirt sighed. “Dipper.” There was no reply. “You’re asleep already, aren’t you?”

Still no reply.

Wirt shifted a bit so he could look down at Dipper. His omnipresent blue and white cap had been lost in the struggle to get up the stairs, leaving unruly curls to reach out in odd directions. Dipper was pale beneath the tan acquired from many hours spent chasing after impossible things outdoors, and his eyes harbored circles so dark it almost looked like he’d been sucker punched.  Despite the obvious exhaustion, Dipper’s shoulders were tensed up almost to his ears, his face straining even in sleep as he clung to Wirt. Wirt sighed again. Taking a nap certainly hadn’t been in his plans for the day, but the longer he looked on, the harder it was to pull away.

Instead, Wirt reached around Dipper’s back and threaded his fingers up through the brown curls at the back of his head. Dipper shifted in his sleep, tensing further for a moment, but Wirt persisted, rubbing the pads of his fingers gently against Dipper’s scalp. As expected, stiff muscles began to relax, Dipper’s face losing a few lines of tension.

“Someone needs to keep a better eye on you,” Wirt murmured, fingers still running through Dipper’s hair. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

In was quiet for a moment, the space filled with the sound of unsynchronized breathing. “I guess… considering recent developments, maybe _I_ should be keeping an eye on you?”

Wirt didn’t receive a reply, but he hadn’t really expected one. Wirt nodded to himself, instead. “I think I can do that.”


	3. On the Phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wirt and Greg have a chat about Wirt's roommate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something about Dipper and Wirt being roommates, without having known each other previously (replying to an ad, I think it was?). Wirt and Greg have remained close and talk on the phone even though Wirt's moved away from home

“Yeah, no, I still think he’s a cool guy.  He’s just… kind of weird,” Wirt said, holding his phone to his ear with one hand as he dug through the dryer with the other.

_“What kind of weird?”_ Greg asked over the line. _“Like when Mom got into all new-agey stuff for a few months weird?”_

“No, not quite like that… he is really interested in the paranormal, though,” Wirt replied, plucking socks out of the mess of laundry to be folded.

_“Mm-hm… Is it like dead bodies in the basement weird?”_

“What? No!” Wirt snapped. “We don’t even have a basement. The closest thing we have is the laundry room and I’m in there right now and there are definitely no dead bodies.”

_“Hm. Mm-hm…”_ Greg hummed in thought and Wirt could practically see him tapping his chin as he sat and put consideration into what brand of weird Wirt’s roommate was. _“Is it the sort of weird that might mean he has a secret identity and goes out and fights crime at night?”_

“Greg, I think we’re going in the wrong direction here.” Wirt shifted his grip on his phone until he could hold it between his cheek and shoulder while he pulled the rest of his laundry from the machine. “It’s not anything illegal or clandestine. It’s just little habits. Like, for the first week we were rooming together, I was pretty sure he didn’t actually sleep at all. He still doesn’t sleep a lot, but when he does it’s in really weird places. I found him passed out at the kitchen table once, and another time I could hear him snoring in his room and I went to shut his door and he was just, like, laid out on the floor instead of on the bed. He talks to himself a lot, and I’m pretty sure it’s not always in English. One time it sounded like he was mumbling in, like, Latin or something before he noticed I was there. He also keeps at least three pens on his person at all times. Seriously, I’ve counted.”

_“Huh.”_ Wirt imagined Greg mulling over this information, expecting an agreement that, yes, Wirt’s roommate was sort of weird, and so was surprised when Greg finally did reply: _“Does he notice that you’re always muttering poetry to yourself?”_

“What? I’m not– I don’t,” Wirt spluttered. “I’m not always muttering poetry to myself.”

_“Yeah you are, Wirt! Like,_ all _the time! Sometimes you’re not even quiet about it, you just say poetry,”_ Greg’s tone was teasing, and it was hard for Wirt to remain irritated when what his younger brother was saying was at least a little bit true.

“I guess… if he has noticed, he hasn’t said anything.” Wirt shrugged, setting to work on folding up pairs of uniform slacks.

_“Has he complained about you playing clarinet at, like, midnight yet?”_ Greg continued.

This time, Wirt could only flush in slight embarrassment. He did have a bad habit of playing his instrument at odd hours when he was working through some anxiety or writer’s block. “No, he hasn’t said anything about that, either. Actually, he plays the sousaphone. I mean, not at midnight, but in general.”

_“Okay… well, I think you should keep him, then,”_ Greg concluded.

Wirt paused in his folding, surprised. “Keep him? Greg, I wasn’t considering kicking him out! He’s actually a really cool guy! He likes music and treats books like some kind of precious treasure and he’s actually a pretty good cook which– well, it almost makes up for the fact that he’s a terrible housekeeper, and he’s got a good sense of humor and he’s good to talk to. I was just… observing some of his stranger habits, is all.” Wirt didn’t exactly mean to gush as he had, but he couldn’t really take it back now.

_“Oh, okay. In that case, I think you should ask him out.”_ Greg’s voice held little trace of humor as he delivered this advice.

“Okay, _what?_ No, Greg, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t– don’t say stuff like that.” Wirt dove back into the land of laundry, hoping some of the blood would drain from his face.

_“No, I think I know what I’m talking about. I’m not a kid anymore, Wirt!”_ Greg insisted.

“Greg, you’re 12.”

_“That’s almost 13, which is technically a teen! Anyway, I definitely know what you sound like when you’re talking about someone you have a crush on, and Jason Funderburker and I are in agreement that you have a crush on your roommate.”_

Wirt sincerely hoped Greg was referring to the frog. “Well, I don’t think Jason Funderburker is qualified to decide whether or not I have a crush on someone.”

_“Well, I am and I think you do and you should definitely ask him on a date,”_ Greg paused. _“Or maybe he’ll ask_ you _on a date!”_

No, the blush was definitely not going away. “Okay, Greg, it’s been nice talking, I have to go now, bye!” Wirt blurted out in a rush, pausing just long enough to hear Greg’s disappointed _“What, already? Okay, bye Wirt!”_ before hitting the ‘end call’ button.

Okay, so there were less cowardly ways to get out of talking about possible crushes with your 12-year-old brother, but hanging up was just so _easy_.


	4. Pens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were pens all over the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one actually does stand on its own, I think. Assumes an established relationship between Dipper and Wirt

There were pens all over the house.

Literally, all over the house. Every room had a pen cup. Even the bathroom.

In a house inhabited by two writers, one never knew when the need for a pen would strike (so said Dipper; Wirt sometimes wondered if his boyfriend wasn’t being a little over-prepared). Thus, there were dented Solo cups filled with disposable Bic Sticks dotting end tables and countertops, old mugs scrounged from the  back shelves of thrift stores stuffed with pens acquired from who-knew-where, and boxes upon boxes of pens in every other drawer just to replace the ones they went through at an alarming rate.

Wirt maintained it was Dipper who used the most pens; Dipper maintained that Wirt assigned far too much importance to singular writing utensils – this was why there was a locked drawer in Wirt’s desk filled with the _nice_ pens he had collected over the years that he didn’t want to end up in Dipper’s hands. Where Wirt was a thoughtful writer, slow and steady and measured as he weighed meters and rhymes on his tongue, Dipper was what one might call manic. Inspiration struck him like a frying pan to the head, and he had startled Wirt on more than one occasion by leaping from his seat without warning, scrambling for a pen and pulling a small notebook from one of the many interior pockets of his jacket, and scribbling in words like his life depended on it.

Wirt wrote in his head as often has he did on paper; sometimes the words were content to remain as thoughts and sometimes they begged for ink. Dipper’s mind, as he had tried to explain it, was full. Absolutely too full of everything and if the words didn’t go down on paper, they came out in voice and irritated everyone in the vicinity (so he said). Dipper kept at least three pens on his person, along with a small lined notebook, and still knocked over mugs and plastic cups in his frantic search for writing utensils when ideas struck.

It was a little endearing, Wirt couldn’t help but think, that Dipper assigned the same amount of intensity to writing shopping lists as he did to scribbling notes in his journals. There were lines of thought penned into every book Dipper had read and notes and dates scribbled into the margins of grocery lists. Papers piled up on Dipper’s desk; threads ran from paper to paper to picture on his walls, all labeled and annotated; and every single scrap of anything even remotely resembling writing, be it his or Wirt’s, was filed away somewhere. Wirt’s papers piled up, too, of course, and he did have a good number of notes and ideas taped and tacked up on the walls, but there was something about Dipper’s fervency that almost put other people’s love for the written word to shame.

There was simply one thing that Wirt couldn’t brook, and that was the pen chewing.

At first, Wirt had been horrified. Who knew where than pen had _been?_ And Dipper was _chewing_ on it. With his _mouth_.

The look Dipper had given Wirt’s incoherent noises of disbelief had really been very cute—eyes wide and confused, brows raised, mouth quirked to one side as he still held the pen at the corner of his lips—but the fact that the pen was still in his mouth kept Wirt from succumbing.

It was a habit Wirt had done his very best to break, much to Mabel’s amusement. She’d told Wirt that she had tried for years to keep Dipper from gnawing the tops off of some of her favorite pens and, in the end, found it was easier to just lock the best things away and let him have everything else.

Over the years, Wirt had caved and simply followed Mabel’s advice. Fountain pens, keepsake pens, novelty pens from Greg, and anything else he didn’t want to bear tooth marks had all been locked safely up in his desk. After that, Wirt supposed as long as he knew to watch for ink spots at the corner of Dipper’s mouth before kissing him hello, things were more or less alright.


	5. Stranger In the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wirt meets a decidedly unexpected stranger in the woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one probably requires the most explanation. I had been plotting a story where Dipper and Mabel were grown and had taken over the Mystery Shack; Stan and Ford had either disappeared (and Dipper and Mabel were investigating) or had died by then - either I never decided or I can't remember. Wirt had just moved to Gravity Falls for ~reasons. Dipper attempts to be a strange and mysterious fighter of the paranormal, but since everyone in town has known him since he was 12, it doesn't really work. This was written before Journal 3 came out, so there's no mention of the gremloblin having venomous quills
> 
> I was also toying around with the idea of there being "teleport spots" in the woods - condensed areas of weirdness energy that people could walk through and get spit out in a completely different area of the woods. Or something. Which this bit relies heavily on
> 
> Minor mentions of injury and blood in this one

If there was one thing Wirt hadn’t expected as he walked through the woods surrounding town, it was to suddenly meet a man.

It wasn’t so much that Wirt was so far into the woods that there couldn’t be other people around – it was more that the man had actually suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Actually nowhere. One minute there was nothing but a bare patch of grass between the trees and the next there was a tall brunet skidding to a halt and crushing the flora beneath beat-up boots.

The man himself looked briefly startled, although Wirt still felt his own surprised exclamation as more deserved since the other man quickly gathered his bearings and rolled to the side just in time to avoid a very large green… thing that appeared just as suddenly as he had. The thing was indistinctly bumpy, dotted with toadstools, and alarmingly large, though the other man didn’t seem quite as alarmed by it as Wirt, who shouted again. “Holy-!”

That, at least, seemed to be enough to draw the man’s attention, which was unfortunate, as the hulking beast chose that moment to take a swipe at him. Overlong talons caught the man in the shoulder and sent him to the ground with a muted ‘oof.’ Then, with the immediate threat out of the way, the thing turned its attention to Wirt, who was standing stock still in the clearing like a startled idiot.

Muscles tense and ready to run, Wirt watched as the beast lowered its head and– didn’t charge. Instead, it stared at Wirt, pupil-less eyes intense, and Wirt was caught as they began to glow bright yellow. The world around him started to fade, the sound of rushing water met his ears, muffled voices, the shriek of a train whistle, and then it all stopped. The creature let out a pained shriek and Wirt watched dazedly as the man on the ground pulled back and gave it another good kick to the knee before rolling to his feet and heading right for Wirt.

Tall though the man was, Wirt had always been what he preferred to call “unfortunately tall,” and the man had to reach up to clap his hand over Wirt’s eyes. “Don’t look it in the eyes!” He shouted, somewhat unnecessarily at this point, and began dragging Wirt bodily backwards while the monster was still making pained grunts.

“Hey! What– stop!” Wirt struggled against the man pulling him along, but his height advantage gave him nothing against the wall of strength coiled beneath the ragged coat the man was sporting.

“Quit struggling, holy shit!” The man finally released Wirt’s face and Wirt’s vision cleared to find a pair of warm brown eyes staring into his.

It would have been awkwardly distracting if they weren’t still standing mere feet from a monster, separated only by what now felt like some very flimsy trees. “Stay here, don’t move,” the man ordered Wirt, and began patting down the front of his coat. “Oh, and uh– put these on.”

The man produced a pair of mirrored sunglasses from one of the pockets of his despairing coat and pushed them into Wirt’s limp hands. “What…” Wirt’s finger’s wrapped around the pair of shades of their own volition.

“Just put them on and don’t move!” The man snapped.

He didn’t spare Wirt another look, instead pulling a round, plastic-framed mirror from an inner pocket and ducking around the trees he’d pulled Wirt behind. After taking a moment to jam the sunglasses onto his face—Wirt had absolutely no idea who this man was or what aviator shades were meant to do against a large, angry monster, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to put them on, in any case—Wirt poked his head around the trees, himself. He kept his eyes carefully trained to the ground, tracing the lines of disturbed grass and flowers until he found the boots of the man who had apparently saved Wirt from the danger that had appeared alongside him. Whatever had happened when Wirt had looked into that monster’s eyes before, he wasn’t looking for a repeat performance.

Instead. Wirt carefully watched the man as he dodged the beast’s swings and blows – it was decidedly strong, but it wasn’t very fast, and it appeared to have weak knees, as the man occasionally kicked out to land a blow to one of the joints, causing the thing to roar in displeasure every time. Wirt couldn’t really see the point in purposefully angering the beast, but as the other man’s voice came back into focus, Wirt could hear what he was shouting. “Hey, ugly, look here!” He would taunt, waving the mirror in front of the monster’s face. “C’mon, just a quick look!”

The monster seemed to be avoiding looking in the mirror as much as the man was avoiding its blows until a lucky kick brought it to one knee, screeching in pain. Its arm shot out, grabbing the man by the shoulder it had swiped earlier, and the man cried out. It was a little hard to tell through a pair of sunglasses in the shaded woods, but Wirt could see dark stains on the man’s coat. The sight alarmed Wirt enough to take a step out from behind the trees, unsure of what he could really do to help but not ready to watch a man be eaten or something equally gruesome. Before he could do anything else, however, the beast gave the man a shake, and they locked eyes. The glow began again in earnest, but the man was faster, tossing the mirror from the hand of his pinned arm to his free one and throwing it up in front of his face.

Caught in the light of its own eyes, Wirt wondered if the beast would turn to stone like some mythical Gorgon; certainly, it sounded strange, but a man had just popped out of nowhere and began battling a monster with nothing but a mirror – stranger things obviously happened. However, instead of turning to stone, the monster let out a piercing shriek of what Wirt could only call fear before releasing the man and backing away.

The monster made a few more pained noises, tossing its arm over its eyes, before turning tail and running through the trees, bashing into some before it disappeared from sight.

The man stood still in the clearing for another moment or two before he lowered the mirror, shoulders heaving in relief. “Okay, you can come out now!” He called. “Should be safe.”

Turning, the man spotted Wirt standing beside the tree, still frozen in place between hiding and helping, and gave him a tired grin, waving him over with his good arm. “I promise I’m not gonna do anything else weird. Probably.” He jammed the mirror back into a pocket. “I just want my shades back, and then you can go back to town and pretend none of this happened.”

Wirt frowned, slipping the sunglasses back down his nose. “Uh- what, exactly, _did_ just happen?” He asked, taking a hesitant step closer.

“As far as you’re concerned? Uh…” The man gave a one-armed shrug. “Would you accept ‘nothing’ for an answer?”

Wirt cocked an eyebrow and the man let out a breath of amusement. “No? Okay, how about: I got shoved through a teleport spot by a grembloblin and saved you from looking it in eyes before scaring it off?”

“A grem-what?” Wirt squinted at the man, as though he wasn’t sure he was quite real.

“Gremloblin. Big, mean, nasty, and you see your worst fears if you look it in the eye,” the man explained, holding a hand out. “Now can I have my shades back, please?”

Folding the arms of the glasses in, Wirt stepped forward and held them out to the man, who accepted them with a half-smile and tucked them back into a front pocket of his coat. The pocket was near the slow-spreading bloodstain, which brought Wirt’s attention back to the three rips in the coat and the three corresponding gashes in the man’s upper arm. “Oh my god, you’re, uh – wow, that thing really got you, are you…” Wirt babbled, taking another unthinking step forward.

“Eh,” the man rolled his shoulder and winced, “yeah, no, that’s gonna scar or something. But I’ve had worse.”

Wirt could only blink, looking over at the man who was standing tall in his tattered coat and dirty boots and putting on a brave face as blood dripped down his coat sleeve and off the tips of his fingers, and didn’t know whether to fuss over his sort-of savior or laugh at the sheer formulaic nature of the situation, right down to the “I’ve had worse.” He was saved the trouble of pondering it any further by a woman who came screaming into the clearing, appearing out of the same thin air that had produced the man and the monster, and plowing right into the former.

“Dipper!” She shouted, sitting up and looking the man over, but making no move to actually get up off his torso. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Better if you… get off!” The man—Dipper?—wheezed, shoving at the woman still sitting on his chest.

“Oh yeah, sorry.”

The woman rolled off him and sprang to her feet before reaching down to give the man a hand up. “Yeesh, that gremloblin got you good, Bro.” She winced, eyeing the gashes in his shoulder. “I’m gonna have to stitch up you _and_ the coat. Again.”

“And you gave me a nice black eye to go with my injuries when you landed on me. I appreciate it, Mabel.” Dipper prodded tenderly at his face, where a red mark was already forming beneath his eye.

“Well sor- _ry_ for trying to come out swinging. I didn’t know what the hell was goin’ on on the other side, here!” Mabel huffed, dropping a backpack Wirt had failed to notice from her shoulders and unzipping it.

“Yeah, well, you came out swinging about five minutes too late. The gremloblin’s gone,” Dipper sighed.

“I couldn’t find the Disappear-o Zone you got shoved through! It took me a couple minutes!” Mabel insisted, groping around in the bag and producing a plastic baggie that appeared to be full of rolls of gauze.

“Whatever,” Dipper shook his head. “It’s over now, either way. Did you at least get some good pictures?”

“I don’t know! I was a little busy trying to figure out where the hell you went. We can look at the pictures of the terrifying monster after we stop the bleeding and get back to The Shack and engage in a satisfying round of “Mabel Told You This Was A Bad Idea.” ‘kay?” Mabel dropped the backpack on the ground and advanced on Dipper. “Coat off.”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “I hate “Mabel Told You This Was A Bad Idea.” The choreography is seriously lacking,” he said, even as he shrugged carefully out of the coat and let it drop to the forest floor.

“Bite your tongue! My choreography is flawless,” Mabel snapped.

Wirt had absolutely no idea what was going on. He cleared his throat uncertainly, and the bickering two froze and looked at him. “Oh. You’re still here,” Dipper said, looking genuinely surprised.

“Who’s this guy? And why is he so tall?” Mabel demanded.


	6. 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I initially posted this in two parts on Tumblr ([one](http://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/140454163631/one-sentence-pinescone-numbers-1-30-word-list%22) and [two](http://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/140471145156/one-sentence-pinescone-part-2-numbers-31-60-part%22)) but never put it up on Ao3 for some reason? Probably because it wasn't really a story, which is why it's just going up here
> 
> Has one mention of blood and one or two references to sex; nothing explicit

1: Self-deception

They would pretend they were smarter, stronger, braver, _better_ , and wonder if maybe one day they would believe they were worthy of each other.

2: Manipulation

Dipper knew he’d made bad choices in the past, and he knew not every path he’d walked had been his own- but if every outside influence in his past had led him to Wirt, he couldn’t bring himself to regret any of it.

3: Overbearing

If there was one thing Wirt was never, ever going to tell Dipper, it was how smothering all of his checklists and over-preparation could be; Wirt knew a coping mechanism when he saw one.

4: Deluded

Years down the line, it would be a source of cringing embarrassment, how far they had gone to convince themselves neither of them had a chance with the other.

5: Mechanization

The world had become one, big, complicated machine, and there was nothing Wirt loved more than to come home, shut away the grinding gears, and curl up with someone who revered the simplicity of pen and paper as well as he did.

6: Comatose

So Dipper had a bit of a problem with pulling consecutive all-nighters; he absolutely did not appreciate Wirt’s vow to take up a sword and protect him like royalty under a sleep spell when he finally dropped (being awakened by true love’s kiss did hold more promise, however).

7: Belief

There was something very different, Dipper decided somewhere in calmer recesses of his mind, about letting someone take your hand and guide you through the panicked belief that something in the shadows was going to get you because they believed it, too.

8: Impulse

Okay, so a kiss was supposed to be step 12 of Dipper’s plan for the perfect date, but something about Wirt made the numbers jumble and suddenly step 12 very much wanted to become step 1.

9: Eagerness

Wirt thought he’d more than had his fill of adventures, and was more than happy to keep his nose firmly out of anything unknown, but it took no more than an enthusiastic smile and an impatient tug of his hand before Dipper had wrapped Wirt up in his world of mysteries.

10: Tears

Dipper had always hated how easily his throat burned and his eyes pricked with tears, at how emotional situations always seemed to devolve into crying, but had to admit that listening to Wirt wax poetic about how deeply Dipper felt things made him feel just the smallest bit better.

11: Sweat

No matter how many times Dipper washed his hands, they seemed perpetually clammy, but Wirt held them anyway and said he didn’t mind much- it evened out his dry skin.

12: Renewal

The habit hadn’t become prevalent until Dipper and Wirt had begun sharing a bed on a regular basis, and by then it was really too late for Dipper to be irritated by it; after a while, Wirt’s mindless murmuring of poetry as he fell asleep felt like a renewed vow, a reminder of the comfort and trust they held together.

13: Temptation

It’s the mundane things that tempt Wirt the most, he realizes, as he longs to pull away the brush that Dipper is attempting to tame his hair with and run his hands through the unruly curls instead.

14: Abandonment

Dipper aches for Gravity Falls, for his home, the three seasons of the year he can’t be there, but when summer rolls around he can’t help but feel like he’s leaving something incredibly important behind as Wirt’s waving figure grows smaller in the rearview mirror.

15: Glass

The glasses were the last thing put away in the new apartment, mostly because Dipper had been put in charge of unpacking the kitchen stuff and Dipper felt he had better things to do than unbox cutlery and appliances, but the pleased look on Wirt’s face just about made up for the wasted hours.

16: Laughter

The TV is on mute, nothing but flickering colors in the background, while Wirt’s notebook has been lost to the couch cushions and Dipper’s book is forgotten on the floor and neither of them can remember what the hell is so funny but they’re tangled together, wrapped up in each other, exchanging kisses full of smiles and mirth and whatever made them laugh in the first place doesn’t really matter anymore.

17: Mourning

Dipper is so, so curious, but he’s never seen Wirt look so horribly melancholy, so he never asks why every time they visit Wirt’s hometown they visit the graveyard, why the small bouquet of flowers needs to be blue, why Wirt stands over the faded headstone of someone who predates him by 100 years; Dipper never asks, he just waits for Wirt to finish and holds his hand as they walk back to the cemetery gates.

18: Poison

Dipper wants to tell Wirt, he really does, but he can’t help the words that choke his mind like smoke and color his actions with caution and poison his thoughts against the other man ( _trust no one trust no one trust no one_ ); he tries, but he can’t help it.

19: Silence

Clarinet, sousaphone, the scratch of pencil on paper, the rapid-fire clicking of a pen, the murmurs of poetry, the mumbling of dead languages, the sounds of two deep thinkers inhabiting the same space- no one can say Dipper and Wirt’s apartment is a silent place.

20: Betrayal

Wirt shouldn’t laugh, he knows he shouldn’t, but the look of complete and utter betrayal that Dipper shoots him whenever Wirt presses cold feet against warm calves is just too much.

21: Objective

“Weren’t we supposed to be studying?” Wirt murmurs between kisses.  
“Studying… what?” Dipper blinks up at Wirt with confused brown eyes, pupils blown wide with desire, and Wirt decides that whatever the actual point of meeting up this afternoon had been, it can’t be as important as this.

22: Smile

Dipper can’t help the affectionate pride that swells in his chest when Greg confides in him that he doesn’t think Wirt has smiled as much in his entire life as he has since he’s started dating Dipper.

23: Robot

On late nights, Dipper likes to pretend that he’s only a machine, that he doesn’t need to eat or sleep, that all he needs is the next page of research- then Wirt comes in and ruins the illusion; cold metal turns back to flesh under Wirt’s gentle hands, exhaustion settles back in newly remembered bones, and Dipper allows himself to be led away to bed.

24: If

Dipper knew there was no changing the way things were and Wirt- well, he knew there were some questions better left unanswered, but nothing ever stopped either man from looking at the other in quiet, doubtful moments and thinking “ _What if we had never…_ ”

25: Routine

Wirt had never been a “morning person,” and Dipper was more of an “awake person”- which was to say he didn’t sleep much and was awake more often than not; that meant that Dipper was the first to leave the bed (if he’d gotten into it), the first to take a shower (his showers were considerably faster than Wirt’s, anyway), the one to start the coffee pot and the tea kettle (Wirt had never cared for coffee and Dipper couldn’t stop drinking it if he tried), the one to start breakfast, and that meant that Wirt got to be the one to wander into the kitchen with towel-rumpled hair and wrap his arms around Dipper and rest his head on the other man’s shoulder and wish him good morning as he made what he for some reason insisted on calling “scrambled meat.”

26: Despair

“You- you’ll be okay, just hold on,” Wirt had no idea why he was saying that, this was so far from okay, so very, very far, but Dipper was gasping and there was blood dripping down from the corner of his mouth and his eyes were glassy and panicked and Wirt tried to put on a brave face and squeeze his hand and _pray_ , “It’s okay, Dipper, just hold on.”

27: Snow

There was something undeniably nice about winter in California; it might’ve been the lack of howling wind and blowing snow that reminded Wirt of times he liked to forget, but the romantic in him liked to think it was because he got to spend the entire holiday break with Dipper.

28: Mask

“Wirt, what do you think? Skull, or fish-man?”  
“I think you’re getting a little too into the idea of Halloween, considering it’s still September.”

29: Pity

It didn’t feel wrong when Dipper reached over to take Wirt’s hand, and he never felt like he had reason to be ashamed that he was too nervous to go on and instead let Dipper lead him somewhere quiet; it never felt like he was being pitied, but like he was being given strength.

30: Distortion

There were some days Dipper looked in the mirror and saw nothing worth looking at, and those days he wondered whose impressions were more distorted- his or Wirt’s.

31: Holy

“Maybe we could find a nice spot in the woods for the wedding,” Dipper suggested, “I mean, getting married in a church feels kinda hypocritical after everything…”

32: Origin

When they first met, Dipper’s dogged determination to get to the bottom of _everything_ had been a source of irritation to Wirt, but somehow, over the years, things shifted until his day wasn’t complete without Dipper telling him about how he was going to find the source of whatever mystery he was currently wrapped up in.

33: Guide

In return for being allowed to listen to some of Wirt’s more embarrassing mixtapes from his teenaged years, Dipper pulled a box of old videotapes out of the closet and proudly introduced Wirt to “Dipper’s Guide to the Unknown” (and hardly minded the laughter).

34: Install

“Sometimes I swear you don’t belong in this century,” Dipper laughed as he pulled Wirt’s laptop towards himself and Wirt complained about how needlessly complicated installing one little computer game was.

35: Us

It didn’t matter how many years passed, how many anniversaries (or half-anniversaries or whatever other odd dates Dipper had marked up on his calendar), how many living spaces they went through, how many holidays they celebrated; thinking of things in terms of “we” and “us” still gave Wirt a little thrill.

36: Stress

They wouldn’t lie, not to each other or anyone else, dealing with someone whose anxiety levels were just as high as yours could be utterly tiring, but somehow Dipper always knew what Wirt needed to hear to calm down and Wirt always knew how to talk Dipper off the ledge and, at the end of the day, they couldn’t say they would trade each other for anything.

37: Sanity

Mabel’s grin grew while Dipper awkwardly waved goodbye to Wirt, the blush on his face the only clue she needed; “Dipper, I now know why you have been ackin’ so cray-cray,” she said solemnly, “and I am _so_ setting you two up!”

38: Perpetual

It almost seemed like the stars had stopped ticking across the sky, like the clouds paused in their paths, like the grass held fast and still against the nonexistent breeze, and Dipper and Wirt laid with their fingers intertwined for minutes, hours, days- forever.

39: Lies

“I’m okay,” Dipper answered Wirt’s unasked question as the boy peered at him worriedly, and for the first time in a long time, the words didn’t feel like a lie.

40: Mortality

Wirt never liked the reminder of past hurts, but always shook his head when Dipper ran his fingers over his own scars and called them reminders of failures and moments of weakness; Wirt preferred to think of them as reminders that Dipper was still _alive_ , still here with him.

41: Death

When Dipper looked up, he could see the sky through the tops of the trees; when he looked over, he could see Wirt sitting beside him, smiling faintly, holding out his hand to pull him into their endless new adventure- “Welcome to The Unknown, Dipper.”

42: Life

Though Wirt had always preferred words to pictures, he couldn’t help the fondness he held for Mabel’s scrapbooks; there was something namelessly pleasant about flipping through photos of Dipper and Mabel’s childhood held down by googly-eyed stickers, of awkward teen years accompanied by tickets to prom and football games, of the early years of his and Dipper’s relationship placed alongside pressed flower petals, of the picnic they’d had yesterday with the glue still drying on the page- proof of a life being lived.

43: Genetics

After arguing half the day away about which one of them should or shouldn’t donate their DNA towards potential offspring, Wirt threw his hands up and suggested they consider adoption.

44: Terrorism

“I refuse to negotiate with terrorists.”  
“Okay, I hardly think threatening to _tickle_ you is tantamount to…”  
“You have no idea the power tickling holds, Wirt!”

45: Terminal

It was probably more typically romantic to bid your lover farewell at an _airport_ terminal, rather than the bus terminal, but Dipper figured he and Wirt had never exactly been typical; besides, it was easier to wave goodbye from the window of a bus than it was an airplane.

46: War

Mabel didn’t even ask why she had walked in on Dipper and Wirt hurling paper balls at each other from behind the couch and dining room table, respectively; she only snagged one of Dipper’s notebooks and joined the fight, shouting that she had no idea what they were fighting over but that she was going to win.

47: Guilt

“Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up…” Dipper’s frantic chant died off, tears welling up in his eyes when Wirt’s voicemail invited him to leave a message, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

48: Witness

When the mood struck, Dipper would grab his sketchpad and set up in whatever room Wirt was currently occupying, using the pencil in his hand as an excuse to watch his boyfriend for as long as he could get away with.

49: Cost

“Ah-ah. My price?” Dipper held the mug of tea just out of Wirt’s reach until the other man leaned forward, blushing above his exasperated smile, to peck him on the lips.

50: Silver

Dipper was fully aware that 25 months did not technically constitute a silver anniversary, but there was no way he would have gotten Wirt to accept the engraved silver fountain pen, otherwise.

51: Mirror

As time went by, Dipper found it got easier to look in the mirror and see something worthwhile look back out at him- particularly when Wirt was standing by his side.

52: Trigger

“It’s okay, we’re just a little off the trail,” Dipper gripped Wirt’s hand and spoke calmly over the panicked breaths that echoed around the trees, “We’re not lost, we’ll get home just fine, I promise.”

53: Accusation

Dipper could glare all he wanted, but Wirt remained steadfast in his assertion that he did _not_ steal blankets- the fact that he happened to have most of the blankets wrapped around him in the morning was merely a repeating coincidence.

54: Potential

Wallflowers by nature, Wirt and Dipper hung back as their classmates danced, content to watch with their hands twined together beneath the table; it might not have been much, but it was certainly a start.

55: Urgency

Even as he avoided Wirt’s dirty looks and helped pick up all the buttons that had flown from Wirt’s shirt the previous night, Dipper grinned to himself and refused to apologize for being a little too eager.

56: Identity

“It doesn’t matter where the name came from,” Wirt whispered against Dipper’s forehead, “It’s yours.”

57: Execution

Dipper was fairly certain he had slurred a few words together in his nervousness and downright mumbled the ending, but the way Wirt’s eyes shone with affection nearly convinced him that the execution of poetry was less important than the effort put into it in the first place.

58: Obsession

Dipper and Wirt didn’t do anything by halves, and when they finally came together after months of admiring and learning about each other from afar, it was perfection- and just absorbing enough to ignore Mabel when she called it the honeymoon period from hell.

59: Ritual

Lying splayed on the sheets, surrounded by candles, Dipper murmuring intermittent nonsense into his skin, Wirt flushed and tried not compare his sex life to some kind of profane ritual.

60: Mother

It hardly mattered Greg wasn’t really a kid anymore, when his cold coincided with Wirt and Dipper’s visit, he demanded every comfort Wirt had given to him when he was a child; Wirt fetched soup and blankets and fairytale books while Dipper stood back and waited for the opportunity to tease Wirt about being a mother hen.


End file.
